zlacker

It's a problem with pretty much anyone. Things are bad from a fundamental structural failings for decades, elect new person, don't see immediate turn-around, they're massively unpopular.

The only way out of this is if you successfully blame $marginalised_group for the peoples problems. Or spend decades undoing the damage, but nobody ever gets decades in power.

>>iso163+(OP)
Some of it is deliberately attempting to appeal to Reform voters, in ways which have infuriated Labour supporters while not winning any Reform support.

>>iso163+(OP)
It's because he was elected with a historically low % of the vote. Few wanted him at the election, few want him now.

>>throwa+F3
Most don't want any of the options presented to them. Almost all the parties don't really serve the electorate, so a large number of people are abstaining.

I appreciate this in an anecdotal but I've spoken to quite a few people I know in my family, that saw it as their civil duty to vote and they told all told me some variation of "there is nobody worth voting for", "I don't think it matters who I vote for".

>>9Jolly+Wd
The UK is FPTP. Reform split the previously unified conservative vote so labour won with a historically low %.

>>throwa+Ls
Total Reform + Conservative vote was at historical lows as a percentage of the electorate.

>>ericho+AE
That might be true, but the votes (not seats, first past the post, almost guarantees people aren't represented): Labour: 9.7M Conservatives 6.8M Reform: 4.1M Liberal Democrats 3.5M

The point clearly stands that had Reform not been a thing, 2024 would have been a conservative landslide.

What we got was a Labour landslide, what we should have got was some coalition.

>>Ransom+PT
Yes, though I'd be careful about assuming that votes are Conservatives <-> Reform on a left-right median voter model. The other aspect that Reform has (and will have at least until it forms a government) is anti-system/populist credentials. Labour had a little of that last time (they are a deeply establishment party, especially under current leadership, but they were coming off a period as very public opposition to the government and the current state of things) but will have very little next time.

It's certainly not a given that all the 2024 Reform vote would have gone to the Conservatives: a good chunk of it would have likely been disgusted abstention, another chunk to other anti-system parties (mostly of the right fringe, I suspect, but not excluding the Greens despite wild ideological differences), and likely a further (if smaller) chunk to other parties which were simply not the Conservatives (including Labour and the Lib Dems).

Edit: the best analysis on this is likely to be in the latest volume of the long-standing The British General Election of XXXX series, which has just been published online[0]. I haven't had time to look at it yet, though.

[0]: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-95952-3

>>throwa+Ls
Turnout was historically low. Labour didn't really "win", the Conservatives lost. A lot of Conservatives voters didn't really recognise the party.

Also not every Reform voter would vote Conservative if Reform didn't exist.

>>Ransom+PT
As the sibling comment said. You are making the assumption that every Reform voter would have held their nose and voted Conservative instead. A lot more people would have stayed home I think. I don't think anyone thought the Conservatives could win and that includes the Conservatives themselves.

>>9Jolly+Wd
There are good options I think for most people. I did not like labors party policy, so I voted for the Lib Dems in a large labour area, did it achieve anything for them? No, did I do my civil duty?

I am sure many green voters felt the same way for many years and now they stand a decent chance of getting many seats!

>>vablin+qL1
Your best option in your area was a protest vote, but you still believe there are good options. To me that sounds like cognitive dissonance.

I don't vote. There are many reasons I don't vote. However the biggest reason I don't vote is that the whole premise or at least how it is presented to you is false. The way it is presented to you both in school, media etc. is that you are supposed to read the manifesto, consider the candidates arguments and history etc. etc.

People don't do that, they vote for their team. People have their political teams, much like Premiership Football it often comes down to the "Reds vs the Blues" (literally Man U vs Man City).